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Silhouette of the Past within the Present for Roman coins and artifacts, and enjoyed tinkering with the wood and nails available on site. Flash forward a few decades and he’s been trained as a furniture maker, and much of his work explores and reinterprets the skills and styles of the past. But Neal also embraces digital technology, doing much of his design work on a computer and some of his making on CNC machines. It was while designing on the computer that he made a mistake—accidentally creating one shape inside another—that inspired this cabinet and a series of pieces like it, rectilinear outside but kerfed to reveal the sinuous lines of a period piece inside. It was a lucky mistake, Neal says, “because I wanted to build furniture that could talk of the past and talk of the now at the same time.” Neal mills the parts for the carcase, then has them kerfed with a CNC machine. After assembly, he takes up a chisel and chops away some of the wafers of wood, more clearly revealing the shape of the piece within. A little like an archaeologist on a dig. G —Jonathan Binzen rowing up in England, Gareth Neal would trail his archaeologist father on digs. He reveled in the search How They Did It Turn to p. 86 to see how the CNC machine has become a part of Neal’s design process. Photo courtesy of Gareth Neal